North Wales AM Ken Skates calls for local TV to be scrapped after Swansea "farce"
LOCAL TV in Wales should be scrapped, an AM has said.
Last week Ofcom invited interested parties to bid for local TV services in 30 areas across the UK, including Bangor and Mold.
The watchdog also re-advertised the Swansea local TV licence, which failed to secure an operator in the first round of bidders.
Ken Skates, member for the North Wales constituency of Clwyd South, said the failure to secure a bidder in Swansea had highlighted problems.
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He said: "The farce over the Swansea licence, which produced no bidders at all first time round, highlights the problem with the core idea. If nobody thinks a station can be commercially viable in a large urban area such as Swansea, how can it then be a viable success in Bangor or Mold?
"Local TV is in no way a substitute or adequate replacement for Welsh commercial television. We have a deficit of coverage of national Welsh issues in our media and it seems wrong that at a time when funding for BBC Wales and S4C has been cut back and the future structure of the Channel Three licence in Wales is yet to be decided, attention is being directed towards local TV."
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